After expulsion by settlers, Palestinians embrace precarious return to Zanuta
Palestinians return to Zanuta village following an Israeli High Court ruling, after settler violence forced residents out in the first weeks following October 7, Masafer Yatta, West Bank, 21 August 2024
Hamdan Ballal Al-Huraini reports in +972 on 9 September 2024:
On August 21, dozens of Palestinians were finally able to return to the village of Khirbet Zanuta, in the South Hebron Hills of the occupied West Bank. After years of facing constant threats from Israeli settlers, all of Zanuta’s approximately 300 residents were forced to flee their homes when settlers escalated their daily harassment and violent attacks in the wake of October 7.
Zanuta was one of several Palestinian communities in Area C — the two-thirds of the West Bank controlled entirely by the Israeli army — that were displaced during the first weeks of the war. But in early August, following a legal appeal by the residents, the Israeli High Court ruled that the police had failed to protect Palestinians in Zanuta from settler violence, and ordered the authorities to facilitate their return.
Despite the ruling, however, the threats of violence and dispossession in Zanuta have not disappeared. Just days after the residents’ return, a group of Israeli settlers descended on the village and harassed the community. On Sept. 9, Yinon Levy, a settler sanctioned by the United States as part his involvement in the organization Hashomer Yosh, entered the village and tried to steal a sheep belonging to the residents. The police and army stood by and failed to uphold their obligation — a haunting reminder that, even with a rare legal victory, the situation remains extremely precarious.
I had accompanied the residents of Zanuta as they returned to their village a few weeks ago. The sadness and pain was visible in their eyes as they witnessed the extent of destruction the settlers had left in their absence. Almost every house had been damaged with their walls smashed, and even the school had been torn down and ruined.
Yet on that day, for many of the Palestinians, the sense of loss was almost outweighed by the joy of being able to return to their land. “When I arrived in Zanuta, I knelt and kissed the dirt,” Muhammad Al-Samamra, a 45-year-old resident, told +972. “I feel like a child who had lost his way from his mother and only found her after a long period of time. I’ve returned to life again after 10 months — and I will not leave. I will sleep on the soil of my village and lean on its rocks, and I will never abandon it again.”